Friday, May 17, 2013

One reason for Egypt’s prominence was its location. As part
of the Mediterranean littoral it linked the
trade routes between Europe and Cathay – as China was known from Roman times
well into the Age of Exploration (1400-1800). Babylonia too, following its
decline, evolved from a transit point on the Silk Road between China and Rome into
an integral part of Greater China. Suggesting that some innovations begun in
Sumeria (see my earlier posts) may have spread east.

As many are now aware, Chinese civilization is nearly as ancient
as that of the Sumerians. China’s oldest documented regime, the Xia Dynasty, dates to the
20th century BC. Unfortunately, due to wars and book burnings, few
financial Chinese records have survived from earlier than the 19th
century – 200 years ago. Those records that have come to light owe more to
happenstance or isolation than to any plan of preservation.

The earliest known Chinese records of financial transactions
were discovered accidentally. At the start of China’s Cultural Revolution
(1966-1976), 15 paper sheets used as packing for an ancient, paper coffin, were
unearthed. The 54 pawnshop transactions recorded on this graveyard material
date from the Tang Dynasty (618-907). As one might expect, these documents shed
light on the active and strong presence of Chinese women in financial
transactions.

Appropriately two women historians have studied this
phenomenon in detail. Their conclusions suggest an unanticipated connection
between God and Mammon. “The rise and spread of pawnshops coincides with the
introduction of Buddhism to China, and indeed the first pawnshops were located
in Chinese monasteries.”[i]

The pawnshop then, as now, operated as a quick source of
financing for working people. In need of cash, individuals could offer a
possession – sometimes literally the shirt off their back – in exchange for
ready cash. The pawned possession could be redeemed within a set period of time
for a sum that usually imputed a double digit return for the pawnshop.

Women from the Tang Dynasty circa 700 AD

Professors Valerie Hansen and Ana Mata-Fink, who have
studied the documents, made this discovery: “of the twenty-nine borrowers whose
names are recorded, nineteen are distinctly male names and ten female
names….The women have surnames but no given names. Instead they are referred to
by their position within the family: ‘woman’ (niang), ‘old woman’ (po),
or ‘younger sister’ (mei).”[ii]
These transactions can be dated to the late 7th century, sometime
between the years 662 and 689 A.D.

Fortunately, and thanks to these documents, we know
something of these women and these, the earliest known financial transactions
involving women in China. Transactions on a single day – the 18th
day of the first lunar month of an indeterminate year

-“Woman Yin”, in exchange for “one old yellow
cloth shirt”, received 100 coins on the 18th of the first month of
the lunar year. She redeemed her shirt five days later.

--He Qiniang, who lived in the Alley behind
Guanyin Monastery, in exchange for an unknown pawned item received 120 coins –
which she redeemed on first day of the following month.

--That same day, thirty-six year old Yang Erniang,
who lived in “North Alley”, deposited an old white silk scarf (patterned with
small, damasked diamonds) and received 20 coins. The seventh day of the
following month she redeemed her scarf.[iii]

All these transactions took place in Chang’an (長安), at
that time the capitol city of China (today known as Xi'an西安).

As we shall see in other locales, there was a further connection
between worship and wealth in this development. “As in Europe, pawnshops were a
forerunner to banks, and borrowers could, through repeated transactions, obtain
large loans against relatively small amounts of collateral….The origins of
Chinese pawnshops lay in Buddhist monasteries, and they remind us that the
innovation of making a loan against a pledge was not unique to the Western
world.”[iv]

Endnotes

[i]
Valerie Hansen and Ana Mata-Fink, “How Business Was Conducted on the Chinese
Silk Road During the Tang Dynasty, 618-907,” p. 58, in Origins of Value: The
Financial Innovations That Created Modern Capital Markets, William N.
Goetzmann and K. Geert Rouwenhorst, Eds., (New York: Oxford University Press,
2005).

[ii]
Valerie Hansen and Ana Mata-Fink, “How Business Was Conducted on the Chinese
Silk Road During the Tang Dynasty, 618-907,” p. 56, in Origins of Value: The
Financial Innovations That Created Modern Capital Markets, William N.
Goetzmann and K. Geert Rouwenhorst, Eds., (New York: Oxford University Press,
2005).

[iii]
Valerie Hansen and Ana Mata-Fink, “How Business Was Conducted on the Chinese
Silk Road During the Tang Dynasty, 618-907,” p. 60, in Origins of Value: The
Financial Innovations That Created Modern Capital Markets, William N.
Goetzmann and K. Geert Rouwenhorst, Eds., (New York: Oxford University Press,
2005).

[iv]
Valerie Hansen and Ana Mata-Fink, “How Business Was Conducted on the Chinese
Silk Road During the Tang Dynasty, 618-907,” p. 59, in Origins of Value: The
Financial Innovations That Created Modern Capital Markets, William N.
Goetzmann and K. Geert Rouwenhorst, Eds., (New York: Oxford University Press,
2005).

Copyright 2013 by David Baeckelandt. All rights reserved. Please do not plagiarize. No reproduction in any form permitted without my express, written permission. Thank you!

Thursday, May 16, 2013

While Roman rights offered great opportunity for financial
freedom, it was a non-Roman who captures the next claim to a Female Financial
First.

Historian William Monter in his excellent The Rise of
Female Kings of Europe, 1300-1800, claims that before the year 1300 there
were approximately two dozen women sovereigns of important monarchies around
the world.[i] Unfortunately, thanks to the ravages of time,
the extant documentary records are incomplete. Yet what has survived is
incontrovertible because it is metal.

"This
hard evidence is first and foremost numismatic. For over two thousand years the
issuing of coins has been a universally recognized method for both male and
female sovereigns to proclaim their official status."[ii]

Cleopatra's silhouette is the first woman ruler's likeness on a coin

Among these madam monarchs, perhaps the best recognized (and
least matronly?) was the woman vilified by the Romans, made famous by
Shakespeare, and (much later) immortalized by Elizabeth Taylor[iii]:
the monarch known today as Cleopatra (69-30 BC). The great Roman poet Lucan,
who was a close, personal friend of the Emperor Nero (at least until Nero ordered
him to commit suicide) devoted his entire final tenth chapter of his “History
of the Civil Wars” to the story of Caesar and Cleopatra, and the tumultuous
times of the previous century. Her legacy
was such that Lucan openly wondered “Whether a woman, not of Roman blood,
Should hold the world in awe.”[iv]

While Cleopatra’s story may not justify subsequent centuries’
fascination, she did contribute a financial first. More properly addressed as
Cleopatra VII, she was “the first woman ruler to put both her image and titles on
numerous coins struck both in Egypt and in several parts of the Eastern
Mediterranean”.[v]

Hailed a “great beauty” by contemporaries[vi],
Cleopatra was also an energetic ruler. Ascending to the throne at the age of
18, she somehow managed to bear children from two of the most powerful Roman
generals of her time: Mark Antony and Julius Caesar. Love and politics rarely
mix well and these matches proved fatal for Cleopatra, who met a difficult and
untimely end (suicide at the age of 39).

Cleopatra was the last in a line of ruling Pharaohs. As such
her story slips easily into European history (even though, by geography, she
belongs equally to Africa and perhaps even to Asia). Still, if we look beyond
our Mediterranean littoral, strong documentary evidence exists of women
involved in financial firsts well before the last of the Pharaohs. It is to the
East that we will turn next.

Endnotes

[i] William Monter, The Rise of Female Kings of
Europe, 1300-1800, claims (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012), p.2.
Wikipedia has an excellent excerpt on this subject: “Women had a high status in ancient Egypt and enjoyed the legal right to
own, inherit, or will property. A woman becoming pharaoh was rare, however; only Sobekneferu, Neferneferuaten, Cleopatra VII and possibly Khentkaus I and Nitocris[18] preceded her in known records as
ruling solely in their own name. The existence of this last ruler is disputed
and is likely a mis-translation of a male king. Twosret, a female king and the last pharaoh of
the nineteenth dynasty, may have been the only woman to succeed her among the
indigenous rulers. In Egyptian history, there was no word for a "queen
regnant" as in contemporary history, "king" being the Ancient
Egyptian title regardless of gender, and by the time of her reign, pharaoh had
become the name for the ruler. Hatshepsut is not unique, however, in taking the
title of king. Sobekneferu, ruling six dynasties prior to Hatshepsut, also did
so when she ruled Egypt. Hatshepsut had been well trained in her duties as the
daughter of the pharaoh. During her father's reign she held the powerful office
of God's Wife. She had taken a strong role as queen to her husband and was well
experienced in the administration of her kingdom by the time she became
pharaoh. There is no indication of challenges to her leadership and, until her
death, her co-regent remained in a secondary role, quite amicably heading her
powerful army—which would have given him the power necessary to overthrow a
usurper of his rightful place, if that had been the case.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatshepsut

[vi]
There is great debate about how Cleopatra looked. By contemporaries she was
hailed as a great beauty. The poet Lucan, who theoretically was able to consult
contemporary records, wrote (about 61 AD – 100 years after her death) that
Cleopatra was “so fair haired that Caesar said he had never seen hair so red in
the Rhine country [i.e., Germany]”. Joann Fletcher, Cleopatra the Great: The
Woman Behind the Legend, (New York: Harper Collins, 2008), p.106. A more recent examination of this pressing issue can be found here; http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1095043/Sorry-Liz-THIS-real-face-Cleopatra.html

Copyright 2013 by David Baeckelandt. All rights reserved. No reproduction in any form or format permitted without my express, written permission. Sorry!

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

A famous French scholar had this to say about women and
finance in Ancient Rome. "Oneofthemostcuriouscharacteristicsof thatagewasthatthewomenappearasmuchengagedinbusinessandasinterested in speculationsasthemen. Money is their first care. Theywork their estates, invest their funds, lend and borrow.” The author goes on to explain that the famous
Roman orator Cicero, no less, both borrowed from and loaned to women.[i]

The Romans, as the polymath UC Berkeley Professor Ulrike
Malmendier points out, were the first to develop what we today call the
corporation. The Latin term was “Societas
Publicanorum”. If the concept of a publicly-traded company “marks the
height of the evolution of business organizations,” as Professor Malmendier
states, then Roman business had made remarkable strides just a few hundred
years after the origin of the Oracle at Delphi. Moreover, according to
Professor Malmendier, Romans also created the innovation of “paretes” – publicly traded shares in
corporations.[ii]

Frustratingly, while she underscored the unique contribution
to financial history of these Roman financial innovations, nowhere does
Professor Malmendier describe a woman’s involvement. But since in citing her
examples she quotes Cicero, and since Cicero himself cites female involvement
in the business world it is difficult to believe that no woman participated in
the “speculations as the men” in the paretes
of the Societas Publicanorum.

Much of my reasoning here is based on a simple fact. During
much of this period although Greek culture (which did not explicitly permit
gender equality) was pre-eminent, by 100 B.C. Rome was the financial capital of
the European world. And it was Roman might and rights enabled free trade to
flourish.

On the ‘rights’ side of that successful equation were
generous rights to women. Some of these rights vanished with Rome’s empire. For
example, women could own property and although not able to vote, they were not
subject to taxes on their wealth. Naturally, fathers, husbands, brothers and
sons sought to exploit this legal loophole. So much so that “by 169 B.C. so much
property had passed into the hands of women that the law forbade a man to will
as much as half his property to women.”[iii]

This law was later abolished. When Rome fell in 476 AD many
of the Greco-Roman contributions in arts, the sciences, and, of course, finance
were lost. Fortunately, and at almost the same time, a new Female Financial First
was being created in Rome’s backyard – a satellite civilization on the
Mediterranean littoral 2000 years ago that absorbed Greco-Roman influences:
Cleopatra’s Egypt.

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

The superpower of the ancient world was Persia, a successor
to Babylonia. Persia’s greatness stood unchecked until the Battle of Marathon
in 490 BC. For several hundred years Greece ascended to the pinnacle of “soft”
power and influence in the Ancient World (aka, the Golden Age of Greece). The
Battle of Marathon also gave us one of our most enduring symbols of the
financial sector: what today we call the “treasury”.[i]

Immediately following the victory, the Athenians built a
“Treasury” for the city below Apollo’s Temple.[ii]
Crafted of cut marble from the remnants of Marathon, it was intended to be
sturdy, inviolable and burglar-proof. This treasury became the repository of
valuables, wealth and functioned in many ways in the same way that a bank does
today. In fact, recreations of this first treasury – pictured below – look
remarkably like our classic bank building.[iii]
The similarities are not accidental.

The Treasury at Delphi

The most prominent of all the Greek temples was the temple
to Apollo at Delphi. The prominence of this temple was in part due to the
future-telling prowess of the priestesses who, because they were deemed married
to the Greek god Apollo, “were subject to the extraordinary requirement of
perpetual celibacy.”[iv]

But these women were more than vestal virgins. Delphi’s
pre-eminence derived from the perception that women prophesied the future
there. Modern scientists (including Professor Richard Neer of the University of
Chicago) have determined that in fact Apollo’s temple was built over a fissure
in the earth, from which gaseous hydrocarbons rose. The “Pythia” (as the
priestesses were called) propped themselves up on a three-legged stool over the
fissure, inhaling the pneuma. Within a short time, the Pythia “would go into ecstatic
union with Apollo, the god of phrophecy….In short, the high priestess got
high.”[v]

At Delphi, “temples functioned as virtual [and actual]
treasuries, filled as they were with precious offerings.”[vi] As professors Homer & Sylla conclude.
“The shrine at Delphi, the greatest of them all, is sometimes described as the
great banker of the Greek world.”[vii]

Like their earlier, Babylonian predecessors, priestesses at
Delphi guarded the wealth of their fellow citizens. While Athen’s Delphic
Treasury may have been the first and most prominent, it was not the only
temple. A modern archaeological website suggests that there are twelve
excavated treasuries at Delphi.[viii]

More than 2,000 years ago these treasuries were under the
protection and integral to temples. These temples were devoted to a specific
god or goddess and controlled by Greek priestesses. It was only the Greek
priestesses who – literally – possessed a key to the treasury in the temple.[ix]
These keys were metal and locked and unlocked the temple treasury doors.

In short, treasuries, the modern day bank building – and the
literal keys to the treasures within – owe a great deal to the Greek
priestesses of Delphi.

[iii]
“Prior to 1930, most American banks were designed in the classical style. To
attract depositors, owners and trustees favored traditional architectural imagery
– large, often free-standing, stone structures in the classical style that
signaled financial stability and integrity. These structures, whether located
in small towns or large cities, projected a strong civic presence and many
became centerpieces in their communities.” http://home2.nyc.gov/html/lpc/downloads/pdf/reports/jamaicasavings.pdf

[ix]
Men sometimes held the temple key in extant carvings but “images of men
carrying temple keys are rare.”Joan Breton Connelly, Portrait of
a Priestess: Women and Ritual in Ancient Greece, (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 2007), p.93

Copyright 2013 by David Baeckelandt. All rights reserved. No reproduction in any form without my prior, written consent. That means you!

Sunday, May 12, 2013

Long before Jane
Hoare’s Valentine’s Day stock transaction (see my earlier piece here), women
were making and establishing “firsts” in finance. Female firsts were not the
exclusive domain of European women. Women from America, Asia, and Africa also led
financial innovations. This post, while brief, will be the second in the series
but the first chronologically in my series.

The Great Ziggurat at Ur

Babylonian Bankers

Historians often trace the beginnings of Western
Civilization to a place firmly in Asia: Babylonia in the 25th
century BC. Since Babylonia is thus considered the cradle of Western
Civilization it may not be surprising that women were active in financial
transactions there and at that time.[i]
In fact, Columbia University Professor of Ancient and Near East History Marc
Van De Mieroop, a scholar of the period, broadly asserts that “loans with
interest are thus first attested [to] in Babylonia.”[ii]

Four thousand years before the present, women were at the
forefront in this, the very first series of financial transactions. The few
records that have survived to the present hint at modern-sounding banking
functions such as accepting deposits, making loans, and transferring credit
between merchants.

Dr. Van De Mierop demonstrates that the earliest examples of
interest bearing loans were found in ancient Sumer – the ancient kingdom from
which Babylonia emerged. Sumerians, “men, and some women, with access to
disposable wealth handed out small loans, made advances for people who could
not pay their rental fees, and in various other ways became creditors.”[iii]

More importantly, these provisions included explicit
recognition of women’s rights. As financial historians Sydney Homer and Dick
Sylla put it: “The wife’s signature was often required in a loan contract.
Women’s property rights were protected by the Code.”[iv]

Mesopotamian-area temples, both Babylonian and Assyrian,
were at the apex of these developments – in part because they became extremely
wealthy as tithes of grain and coin poured. In fact it appears that temples
dominated finance.[v]

In what may be the earliest reference to a woman borrowing –
and repaying – money, scholar Rivkah Harris at the University of Chicago
offered this (undated) detail:

“Amatum, a woman, had borrowed a relatively large sum of
money from [the temple of] Isarpadda, an otherwise unknown god. She [repaid]
the money to Isarpadda and his agent Irra-gaser….It was probably Irragaser
along with Isarpadda who gave the original loan to Amatum.”[vii]

Not all loans were of coins – barley appears to be the borrowed
item as well.[viii]
Interest was sometimes stated and sometimes not. Payment could often be made in
kind.[ix]
One woman was required to sacrifice two rams in lieu of interest payments.[x]

However, borrowing goods and repaying via sacrifice sounds
quite different from a modern loan. It is refreshing then to learn that
financial borrowing did occur in ancient times and the earliest examples extant
includes one where a woman acts as lender.

Sumerian Shekel

Professors Homer and Sylla show that
among the very first recorded loans was a temple priestess lending to a local
man in about the year 2000 B.C.:

“’Two shekels of silver have been borrowed by Mas-Schamach,
the son of A., from the sun-priestess Amat-Schamach, daughter of W. He will pay
the Sun-God’s interest [20-25%?]. At the time of harvest he will pay back the
sum and the interest upon it.’”[xi]

As far as is known, this is one of the earliest recorded
financial transactions in history.

If one can get past terms like ‘priestesses’ and ‘shekels’, the above transaction – perhaps the very first known to humans involving women – has all the elements of a modern loan (interest, parties, term, etc.). Over time this transaction and others like it evolved into proto-banking activities.

Commerce is dependent on good governance. Sumeria was
fortunate in this regard. Well before the onset of a modern legal system,
Hammurabi’s Code – the first known codified legal system – made provisions for
financial agreements.[xii]

Like the spread of Hamurabi’s Code, mirror banking practices
were likely adopted by neighboring societies because of the logical necessity. Within
years of the priestess’ 2 shekel deal, loans like it could be found nearly
everywhere in the Mideast – except for, curiously enough, Egypt.[xiii]

Babylonian tablets such as these captured the terms of their loans

My
next post will discuss Greek contributions to Female Financial Firsts. Copyright 2013 by David Baeckelandt. All rights reserved. No reproduction in any form without my express, written consent.

Saturday, May 11, 2013

No Reproduction
permitted in any form without my express, written consent.

Receipt written by Mrs. Jane Hoare. Author's collection.

On Valentine’s Day in the year 1729 a woman wrote out the
above instruction for her shares in the South Sea Company stock.

Mr. Lockyer

Pray pay Mr.
Christopher Arnold my Dividend now due and hereafter to grow due upon all my
South Sea Stock that I now have or shall have and I do hereby Impower the said
Chris_r Arnold to Accept for me any Stock that is or shall be put to my Name in
the Books of the said Company & this shall be your Warrant for the same.

Feb. 14; 1729 Jane
Hoare

As a collector of antiquated financial documents sometimes I
do not know what I have bought until after the fact. Although the date and the
text intrigued me, there was no indication of background or origin in the
document above. This lone example from one of the first financial bubbles sat
neglected and virtually unnoticed at a prominent auction more than a dozen years
ago. Yet the reality is that this may very well be the earliest ‘proof’
(outside of archives) written in a woman’s hand, of ownership in a publicly
traded stock.

Jane Benson Hoare sometime after 1700. National Trust.

So Who Was Jane
Hoare?

While England may have been a significant step behind the
Low Countries in terms of property rights for the average woman, the moneyed
elite were not as restricted.

Moreover, although literacy rates in 1700 were abysmal –
less than half of all males and perhaps a third of all women in England could
comfortably read a novel – this was a dramatic increase from just two
generations prior.[i] It
is striking that we first see evidence of active women participants in the
London stock market at the same time we see literacy rates for women creeping
higher. In fact, a near contemporary, Adam Anderson, writing in 1764 about the
South Sea Bubble (circa 1720) had this to say:

“From morning till evening the dealers therein, as well as
in South Sea-stock, appeared in continual crowds all over Exchange Alley, so as
to choak [sic] up the passage through it….Persons of quality of both sexes were
deeply engaged in many of these bubbles, avarice prevailing at this time over
all considerations of either dignity or equity; the males coming to taverns and
coffee houses to meet their brokers, and the ladies to the shops of milliners
and haberdashers for the same ends.”[ii]

So who indeed was the lady mentioned at the start of this
article, Jane Hoare? Financiers in the United Kingdom may well recognize the
surname “Hoare”. C. Hoare & Co. is the oldest bank in the U.K. (and the fourth oldest in the world).

The bank’s
founder, the goldsmith Richard Hoare, got his start in 1672 when his employer died in a plague that swept through
London.[iii] Richard Hoare’s descendants continued to
manage the bank until recently (Alexander S. Hoare, the 11th
generation to run the bank, was the last).[iv]

Henry Hoare "The Good". Husband of Jane Hoare

Hoare’s bank was an active player in the markets from its
earliest days. The bank catered to an impressive list of clients – including
members of the aristocracy and a large number of MPs (Members of Parliament). Hoare’s was a successful participant in the
London stock market in the 1720s, earning returns that would be the envy of
hedge funds today.[v]

The frothy stock market behavior of the year 1720 was driven
by speculative fever. At least 190 companies came to market in what we today
call “IPOs”.[vi]
The resultant stock prices raised many stocks.

Purchases of South Sea stock by
customers were greater than sales in 1729 at Hoare’s Bank.[vii] Nor was this a
reflection of insider trading. As Professors Temin and Voth have statistically
demonstrated, “Hoare’s trading record was impressive by almost any standard,
and it was not due to chance” or insider access to decision makers.[viii] During the period of
the “Bubble” in South Sea stock (February thru September of 1720) the partners
not only made money for their clients they made money for the partners. The
trading profits for that year were more than the cumulative over the Bank’s
previous 20 years.[ix] But
all of this was in the future and unknown at the time Jane Hoare came upon the
scene.

Jane Hoare was in fact born Jane Benson in 1679. Her mother
and the mother of her future husband Henry (“the Good” – pictured above) were
in fact sisters. Despite the closeness in genealogy, the marriage appears to
have been a happy one: 11 children were born to the union (although 6 died
young). Two of their sons – also named Richard and Henry – later became
partners in the firm.[x]

Exchange Alley in 1746

At the time Jane penned the instructions on the receipt, she
had already been a widow for several years (Henry died in 1725 and left her
£4000).[xi]
At this time and place – 1720s England – widows, for legal as
well as economic reasons, were the largest component of women investors in the
market.[xii]
This qualification is both in terms of average purchase as well as in terms of
average activity.[xiii]

Mr. Lockyer, to whom she penned her note, was the Accountant
for the South Sea Company (and therefore the person who maintained the South
Sea company stock ledgers). Mr. Christopher Arnold, Mrs. Hoare’s agent, was in
fact her husband’s former employee/ business partner and had known Mrs. Hoare
for more than 20 years. So irregardless of the formal language, the transaction
recorded by this receipt was a transaction between three individuals who had
known each other for many years.

Jane Hoare nee Benson was,
however, neither a novice nor an anomaly in the stock market in the 1720s when she inked her Valentine day note. In fact
her father-in-law Richard Hoare, had been a Director of the South Sea Company while her late
husband, brother-in-laws, and sons had been both heavy investors in and active
“stock-jobbers” (broker-dealers in American parlance) in the actual South Sea
Company stock.[xiv]

As professor Ann M. Carlos has
shown through recent research, women’s involvement in the London Stock Exchange
actually increased between 1720 and 1725 – even as the market expanded.[xv] Moreover, this market activity did not go unrewarded. As
Professor Carlos concludes: “Our research shows the same pattern [women making
money and men losing money] across the South Sea Bubble of 1720 in Bank of
England shares. Women, as a group, had capital gains, while men, as a group,
had capital losses.”[xvi]

The frenzy of trading in Exchange Alley in 1720

Jane’s investment
decision (to hold and accept dividends) neither supports nor refutes Professor
Carlos’ declaration. The end-of-the-month trading data for South Sea stock record
(on February 28, 1729) a closing price of £97.375 per share. This was the
lowest month-end number since December 31, 1726. Moreover, the February closing
price was the lowest of that year (1729). South Sea stock would not
subsequently be quoted as lower until August 31, 1733 – 4 and ½ years later.[xvii]

Of course, even if
Jane Hoare only owned 1 share (and the text of this document says “shares”)
this was not an inconsiderable amount of wealth. At a time when the average
laborer could count on annual income of less than £20, a single share at this
time represented nearly five years’ gross earnings for most in Britain.
Moreover, the dividends were an annuity stream that could enable them to live
comfortably for years.[xviii]

Mrs. Jane Hoare was
neither the first woman to become involved in the financial markets. Nor did she
in fact blaze any particular trail of financial innovation. What we may however
give her credit for is the fact that she may hold pride of place as having
penned the oldest financial document knowingly recorded in a woman’s own
script.

William Hogarth's satirical print of the South Sea Bubble's excesses

Endnotes

My grateful thanks to Linda Cunningham for inspiring this piece and series

[i]
Paul J. Hunter, Before Novels: The Cultural Contexts of Eighteenth Century
English Fiction, (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1990), pp.66-67. Note,
Hunter does not state these numbers for 1700 but he does say that they reflect
the literacy rates in 1675 and that these were unchanged in 1750. Hunter also
states that English speakers were the most literate “in the world” and that the
Scots at this time were the most literate in the English isles. New Englanders,
however, surpassed even the Scots in literacy according to Hunter. However, I
would treat these declarations with caution. Further, For an excellent discussion of the use of marks – simple and
sophisticated – and signatures as a mark of literacy – please see Geoffrey
Parker, “An educational revolution? The growth of literacy and schooling in
early modern Europe”, inTijdschrift
voor geschiednis, 93ste jaargang 2, 1980, pp.210-220..

[ii]Adam
Anderson & William Combe, An historical and chronological deduction of the
origin of commerce from the earliest accounts, containing an history of the
great commercial interests of the British empire: to which is prefixed an
introduction, exhibiting a view of the ancient and modern state of Europe, and
of the foreign and colonial commerce, shipping, manufactures, fisheries,
&c. of Great Britain and Ireland and their influence on the landed interest, Volume
3 (Google eBook), (London, J.White, 1801), p.102. Reprint of
the 1764 1st edition. Accessed March 29, 2013. Please not that it
was not only the South Sea stock at this time that was caught up in the
“bubbles” of the era. Numerous stocks for extracting beaver pelts and naval
stores from America (or establishing colonies there), various practical infrastructure
and agricultural (or sericulture) schemes also experienced rapid stock price
gyrations. But other schemes ranged from the plain (“XXXVII Trading in Flanders
Lace”) to the bizarre (“XXXVI Trading in Human Hair”) to the ambitious (“XLII
For Better Curing Venereal Disease” or “LIII For Lending Money on Stocks,
Annuities, etc.”) to the truly nutty (“XLIII A Subscription Advertized, and
Actually Opened, For an Undertaking, Which Shall, in Due Time Be Revealed”or
“LXIII Foor a Wheel For a Perpetual Motion”). –
Ditto, p.111

[iii]
“At the end of the seventeenth century, the goldsmiths [of London] had become
embryonic bankers learning the skills of lending money to a multiple of the
reserves deposited with them.” See Antoin E. Murphy, “John Law: Innovating
Theorist and Policymaker,” p. 230, in Origins of Value: The Financial
Innovations That Created Modern Capital Markets, William N. Goetzmann and
K. Geert Rouwenhorst, Eds., (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005).

[iv]
Several excellent books are worth consulting for this story. The best, in my
opinion, is Hoare’s Bank, ______

[v]
“Hoare’s earned large returns on most of its holdings. Hoare’s realized a
return of 75 percent per month in the Royal African Company in the early summer
[of 1720]. In late April, the bank made a proﬁt of 43 percent in 17 days in
Ram’s Insurance. Hoare’s owned substantial holdings of Bank of England stock
before the bubble began and bought more at various times in 1719 and in early
1720. The bank sold in April and again in August, earning an internal rate of
return equivalent to 51 percent per annum.” p.1661 Peter Temin and Hans-Joachim
Voth, “Riding the South Sea Bubble” in American
Economic Review, Vol. 94, No.5, (2004) pp.1654-1668.

[vi]
Niall Ferguson, The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World,
(New York: Penguin, 2009), p.157

[vii]
pp. 570-571 in Anne Laurence, “The emergence of a
private clientele for banks in the early eighteenth century: Hoare’s Bank and
some women customers” in Economic History
Review,
61, 3 (2008), pp. 565–586.

[ix]
“On November 27, 1721, it was time for the partners at Hoare’s bank to collect
their proﬁts. Henry Hoare, the senior partner, had £21,000 transferred to his
private account; Benjamin Hoare, the junior partner, transferred £7,000. These
were not the normal distributions to bank partners at the end of an annual
accounting period; the partners were reducing their involvement in trading
stock and distributing proﬁts. Proprietary trading during the South Sea bubble
had been phenomenally successful—the partners probably earned as much in 1720
–1721 by

buying and selling stock as they had over the 20
previous years. Possibly no other single economic activity contributed as much
to the partners’ prosperity during the bank’s early years” p.1666 Peter Temin
and Hans-Joachim Voth, “Riding the South Sea Bubble” in American Economic Review, Vol. 94, No.5, (2004)
pp.1654-1668.

[x]
E-mail correspondence between the author and Ms. Pamela Hunter, Curator of the
C.Hoare & Co. archives, September 7, 2012

[xii]
“‘’Over 1720, there were 6,844 total transactions with an average
book value per transaction of £871.30. The book value of transactions was
higher in the first half of the year than the second; £924 relative to £770.
Narrowing our focus to those cases in which women were either the seller or the
buyer, we find that, overall, women comprised 13 percent of the market by value
of transactions. In terms of the number of transactions, women are listed as
sellers in 649 separate transactions and as buyers in 550. Thus, when measured
by the total number of transactions, women comprised 10 percent of all sales
and 8 percent of all purchases across the Bubble.

In
Figures 2a and 2b we show the weekly transaction activity by women. Of course,
individuals could and did have multiple transactions. While there were nearly
7,000 separate transactions, there were only 2,233 unique sellers of Bank of
England stock and 2,304 unique buyers. Of these unique sellers, 406 or 18
percent of the total were women; of the buyers, 366 or 16.3 percent of the
total were women. Overall there were 577 unique women. “ p.209 in Ann M.
Carlos and Larry Neal (2004). “Women investors in early capital markets,
1720–1725” in Financial History Review,
11, pp 197-224. doi:10.1017/S0968565004000137

[xiii] “Widows and spinsters were the main actors in the market
[in England in 1720]. The average widow had a book value of sales of £674,
while a spinster had a book value of £628. On the buying side, the average
widow had a book value of purchases of £785, while spinsters had only £540.” Ann M. Carlos and Larry Neal (2004).
“Women investors in early capital markets, 1720–1725” in Financial History Review, 11, pp 197-224.
doi:10.1017/S0968565004000137 p.212

[xiv] “Richard Hoare was a director of the original South Sea Company. The
Hoare family themselves were active in the stock market, and Richard’s sons,
Henry and Benjamin, invested heavily in the South Sea Company, making some
£28,000 from trading during the South Sea Bubble.” Anne Laurence, “The emergence of a private clientele for banks in the early
eighteenth century: Hoare’s Bank and some women customers” in Economic History Review, 61, 3 (2008), pp.
565–586 – p.567

[xv]“[In England] during [the year]
1720, women’s activity constituted 13 per cent of transactions [on the London
Exchange] measured by value, 10 per cent of total sales and 8 per cent of total
purchases. While individual women lost and made money from their market
activity, women s net position over the [South Sea] Bubble was positive… By
September 1720, women made up 20 per cent of Bank [of England] shareholders
holding 10 per cent of the capital stock. By September 1725, women held nearly
15 per cent of a much larger capital stock.“ Ann M. CarlosandLarry Neal, “Women investors in early capital markets, 1720
1725”, Financial History Review, 2004, vol. 11, issue 02, pages 197-224 – Abstract http://econpapers.repec.org/article/cupfihrev/v_3a11_3ay_3a2004_3ai_3a02_3ap_3a197-224_5f00.htm , Accessed April 6, 2013

[xvii]
Larry Neal, The Rise of Financial Capitalism: International Capital Markets
in the Age of Reason, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990) 2002
Digital Print Version, pp. 236-237. Note: Neal list month end prices from
September 29, 1711 until December 31, 1789. The Appendix with these and other
prices is found on pp.231-257.

[xviii] “But what might the ownership of shares have meant for
women more directly? Bank of England shares were a wealth asset. Again, from
Erickson’s work on the probate records, she estimates the median wealth for an
agrarian gentleman in the 14 counties in the seventeenth century to be £329.
For a yeoman, the median wealth was £195, while the annual salary of an
agricultural laborer in 1720 was at most £19 per year.Thus any
woman who owned, for example, £400 of shares, and there were many, was wealthy.
Shares also provided an income stream through the semiannual dividend payment.
Again, £400 book value generated roughly £36 income per year. Even women who
held £200 book value of shares or more were wealthy, while the income from £100
book value of shares or less could have had an impact on annual earnings. For
those women who held as little at £9 book value of shares, such small holdings
provided a safety net in the event of adversity. Bank shares were very liquid
and the price was transparent. Even the smallest holding of £9 in this period
had a market price of at least 150, which would have generated £13:10:0 if
sold, which was two-thirds the annual wage of an agricultural laborer.” P.224 in Ann M. Carlos and
Larry Neal (2004). “Women investors in early capital markets, 1720–1725” in Financial History Review, 11, pp
197-224. doi:10.1017/S0968565004000137.